


Mourners

by Rosie447



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Study-ish, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentions of Barbara "Barb" Holland, Mentions of Jim Hopper - Freeform, Minor Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Minor Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Nancy Wheeler-Centric, Post-Season/Series 03, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 12:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19812079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosie447/pseuds/Rosie447
Summary: "This was the third funeral Nancy Wheeler had been to in less than a year, and her black dress was starting to pinch across the shoulders."Nancy and Mike attempt to navigate supporting those you love in the wake of a tragedy.





	Mourners

This was the third funeral Nancy Wheeler had been to in less than a year, and her black dress was starting to pinch across the shoulders. It was kind of funny, she thought, in a terribly depressing sort of way, that she’d been to enough recently that she’d notice herself slowly growing out of her funeral apparel. She was squeezed between Mike and her mother near the back since neither she nor he could come up with a feasible reason why they might have known the Hopper more than anyone else. Their mother had thought it a nice gesture that they came at all, and rested her hands gently on both of their shoulders. 

She would have preferred to stand with Jonathan, and she imagined Mike wanted to stand by El, but both of them were up near the front with Mrs. Byers and she found her throat strangely clogged every time she tried to speak. Because it would seem odd, for everyone here to see her cry. 

It was too warm for black clothes, and something told Nancy that Hopper wouldn’t have appreciated them all suffering in the sun, just for his sake. 

The pastor finished his speech about noble actions and kind words, the latter of which Nancy imagined Hopper snorting at. It almost made her smile. Because people always seemed to lie at funerals. 

_Beloved friend,_ they’d said at Barb’s. _The entire Hawkins community feels this loss._ Which was bullshit. Barb hadn’t been beloved by anyone but Nancy, and even she’d done a terrible job of that in the end. And the crowd at the funeral itself spoke to exactly what percentage of the population of Hawkins actually had felt the loss. Barb’s parents. Nancy. Her parents. Jonathan, who was really only there for emotional support. A few girls from their chemistry class. Steve, who’d looked out of place in his black sport coat and stared at his shoes the entire time. 

Hopper’s funeral was more crowded. Public figure and all, Nancy supposed she ought to have expected it. 

“I’d like to go with El.”

Nancy startled. Their mother hesitated before nodding, squeezing his shoulder lightly.

“Of course. Make sure she knows she’ll always have a place with us.”

It was a new sentiment from their mother, but a nice one all the same.

“I might stand with Jonathan,” she managed.

“Go. Be there for your friends.”

She and Mike gradually wove their way amidst other black-clad mourners. Fellow policemen. Relations Nancy had never considered he might have. Murray offered her a tight nod. Dr. Owens hung on the periphery. When she reached Jonathan, she wordlessly folded her fingers into his. He squeezed tight, but his eyes didn’t stray from the closed casket. Only a few of them could explain why it was empty. 

* * *

They were all supposed to be headed to the wake. It was the same place they’d held the funeral for Will Byers, several lifetimes ago. Will himself hadn’t left his mother’s side since Starcourt. Nancy watched the pair of them, wishing she could summon enough hope for one more miracle. But that hope was buried a few plots over from Hopper, and that was where she found herself now.

She sank to her knees in the grass, morning dew blooming against her black tights, and squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as possible, trying to breathe in something that wasn’t grief. 

She’d stayed after Barb’s funeral as well. Fallen to her knees in this same spot and begged for forgiveness. She remembered Jonathan’s soft footsteps behind her and his arms circling around her shoulders, warm breathe against her neck. 

He needed her at the wake. She needed to leave now.

“Nancy?”

Mike did not have light footsteps like Jonathan. His were heavy and graceless. She always shouted at him from downstairs, his entire weight echoing in every footfall he made as she tried to talk on the phone. There was no way she could have missed him approaching if she’d been half paying attention.

“Yeah?”

“Mom’s looking for you.”

She sighed. “Tell her I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Okay.” He didn’t leave. “Could we maybe talk?”

“What is it?” 

Mike paused before settling next to her on the grass, cross-legged. He was taller than her now, but the position made him look horribly young. Like the kid brother who’d used to scream with his friends in the basement, and whose biggest problem was putting together an oversized model for the science fair. He was older now. But not by that much.

“It’s about El.” He seemed to be collecting himself. “I don’t know what to do for her.”

“And you want my advice?” It was not the occasion, but she could barely contain the wry note to the sentence.

He shrugged. “I don’t want to mess it up.”

“Just be there for her.”

Mike crossed his arms over his chest and for a second looked like her familiar little brother. “Wow. Thanks. Never would have thought of that one.” 

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Advice!” he gestured vaguely into the air. “What helps, what makes everything worse, what to do, what not to do.”

“And you think I’m an expert on this because…” She let her voice trail off. Mike’s eyes flicked for a second to her right. To the headstone. _Barbara Holland._ Right. 

Mike studied his shoelaces.

“You broke up with Steve because he did the wrong stuff.”

“I didn’t.” It comes out more forceful than she meant it to. “Mike, those two things were - they weren’t unrelated but it was more,” she struggled to find the right words. “It was more it exposed things that already weren’t working in the relationship. Made everything crisper. It wasn’t like that, okay?” 

“Things that already weren’t working?” Mike’s voice was smaller. “Like what things?”

“Like things.” She threaded her fingers through the grass. Normally she’d have snapped at him for pursuing that particular line of questioning, but there was something tentative about the moment, like glass about to break. “Are you worried El might break up with you?”

“She dumped me before. We just got back together.” He fidgeted with an overlong string on his sweater. “But that’s not why, not really. I’d want to be there for her whether we were dating or not. I just don’t want to make her feel worse.”

“That’s good.” She meant it. “I mean, that’s a good place to start. Everyone’s different, Mike. They grieve and process in different ways. What worked for me might not help El, and what helps El might not work for someone else. Pay attention to her. Not just what she’s saying, but what she’s not saying. She might not want to take charge but always make sure to ask her what she wants.” 

Mike nodded, and it was hard to reconcile his look of rapt attention with the brother she knew. 

“But the main thing, or the one thing I wish I’d told someone when,” she glanced at the headstone beside her. Thin cobwebs had started for form in the crevices that made up the letters. “When I lost Barb, is that she’s not okay. And she might not be okay for a while. And it isn’t your job to make sure she’s okay.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off.

“You’re there to help her, and you should help her, but there’s going to be a part of her that feels broken. And no one can fix it for her. She might feel… hollow. Or lost. And no matter what you do - no matter what you do you can’t make her feel whole. Or found. And you love her so you want to help her, but you trying to make her feel okay will only make her feel like she owes it to you to be okay. Even if she isn't.”

Mike was quiet and Nancy felt the moisture from the ground spreading further on her tights as she sunk into the dirt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I wasn’t really there when-” he gestured around instead of finishing the sentence. Instead, he leaned back, head tilting upwards towards the unfairly picturesque sky. “We didn’t really get along well.”

“You and me?”

“No. I mean, yeah,” he looked back at her and smirked. “But I meant, um, _him._ I don’t think he liked me dating El.”

“I don’t think he would’ve liked anyone dating El. I’m not sure you had anything to do with it.”

“I was kind of annoying.”

“You? Really?”

He shoved her and she shoved back, and for a split second, things almost felt normal. 

“It all feels weird,” he said, smile fading. “He saved us. And he loved her. And even though we didn’t get along everything without him feels off-kilter and _wrong._ It’s not supposed to be this way. And I wish - I wish that I could get a second chance to tell him that it was only normal boyfriend-dad argument stuff. That I appreciated everything he did for her. For all of us.”

She could have said a lot of things, then. Commensurate on the strange grief that came with the death of someone who was a familiar, but distant figure in their lives. Let him know that he wasn’t the only one who wished so many things hadn’t gone unsaid. Instead, Nancy shifted, her too-tight dress squeezing her shoulders as she moved to sit closer to him, to rest her head against his shoulder. He was getting too tall for her liking. He tensed, evidentially unsure how to process physical affection from his _sister_ of all people. But then his hand curled into her hair and she felt his shuttering, uneven breathes against her forehead. 

She tried not to move too much until he shook her off, the moment gone. 

She searched for his eyes and held them. “I think he knew.” 

“Yeah, I guess.” He stood up, glancing away, and offered her a hand. “We should probably get to the wake before Mom freaks out.”

She took it, letting him pull her up to a standing position. Then she brushed the dirt from her best friend’s grave off the back of her dress and followed her brother inside.


End file.
